Out of a passion and tragedy grows charitable quilting project

By Willis Patenaude | Times-Register

“Sometimes life is so hard you can only do the next thing. Whatever that is, just do the next thing…”

Walking on the uneven and sometimes missing sidewalk of Elkader’s High Street, toward the Keystone Terrace Apartments, one could be reminded about the unevenness of life, which either comes with its own missing pieces or pieces you lose along the way. Life, like the sidewalk, didn’t always look that way. Discolored and cracked with grass and weeds poking through and growing around the edges. Weathered, like they’ve seen some things.

It was a short walk to talk with Garnavillo native Kevin Dutka, who recently relocated to the apartments, a move he reluctantly made after recent hardships left him with minimal options. I later learned, during the interview, that Kevin had medical issues that resulted in the loss of his driver’s license, and though he wanted to keep working, he was no longer able to. It also meant selling his home in Garnavillo, which he’d lived in for the last few decades and where he and wife Tonya had raised two daughters, Heather and Rosie.

But before I met with Kevin, as a younger looking gentleman wandering lost outside the apartments, I piqued the interest of one of Kevin’s neighbors. One of those inquisitive types who keeps an eye on the comings and goings around the neighborhood, acutely aware when a strange face is shuffling about. It was a comical occurrence, harkening back to the days when neighbors actually knew your business—in a friendly kind of way—and looked out for you.

Once past the neighborhood security, I got an escort to Kevin’s front door, and was met by Kevin, a very friendly, tiny dog named Bailey and the sound of Law & Order on the television. I think it was Special Victims Unit, and it would lead to an amusing search for the remote early in the interview. Despite my best guess, the dog, in fact, was not sitting on it, though she politely let me check.

Looking around Kevin’s apartment, I was teleported to an earlier era, a different time, somewhat. Not too far though, but one where CDs still worked, knickknacks were all the rage and embroidery blocks lined the living room table. There was little sign of the hard life Kevin has been through in the visuals of the apartment, unless you knew where to look. In his voice and in retelling his past, there was a sadness and maybe even a touch of bitterness at the harshness of life and the hand he was dealt. But there was also resilience in a man who is just trying to do the next thing.  

Kevin worked odd jobs and hard jobs throughout his life, mostly on farms and other manual labor jobs. Working on the farm was something he didn’t seem to mind. He liked the little animals and work ethic it instilled—a reminder of something his father told him: “If you want something, you want to earn. If you want to make it in life, you got to work for it.”

And so he did. He and Tonya worked and married in a “shotgun wedding,” Kevin jokingly added, then started a family and bought a house. It’s an everyday American Dream success story, but it was built on the foundation of a hard life because, let’s be honest, there’s nothing easy about farming.

Still, life was going well, and even allowed hobbies like cross-stitching. It was a hobby Kevin watched his mother do, and even had her make him an eagle blanket for a graduation present. He took up the hobby himself, and eventually, it led to an idea that included Tonya and Rosie. 

It turns out, Kevin was a prolific cross stitcher. Sometime around the late-2000s, Kevin guesses, they tried to turn his cross stitched blocks into quilts or pillows or even blankets and sell them at local farmers markets or quilt festivals. It was something they could do together, forging lasting bonds—bonds Kevin is still holding onto. 

Between time consuming work and impending tragedies, the trio only completed a handful of projects. Eventually, even the idea and cross stitching came to a sudden halt.

The tragedies started on March 27, 2011, when Rosie lost her life in a tragic car fire. Tonya unexpectedly passed away on May 18, 2014. The time for cross-stitching was over. Everything felt over for Kevin, especially after the death of Rosie, who he used to go bicycling and canoeing with. When she died, Kevin just “threw it all under the bus.” He just couldn’t do it anymore and didn’t want to do life anymore either.

After the death of his wife, cross-stitching was basically locked away. He couldn’t go back due to the memories—the painful memories of lives lived and lives lost—and the unfinished quilts they were supposed to do together. Kevin had to move on to the next thing. Then medical problems started to arrive, and he couldn’t live by himself anymore.

Life had become too hard for that, but somewhere in the last few years, Kevin unlocked the symbolic lock on the box holding his cross-stitching. Through the tragedy, he picked up a needle and started again. It was time to heal. Time to start “letting go of the anger and stress” of yesterday’s tragedies. 

Maybe it was time to finish what he started with his wife and daughter and bring some closure. He just had to find the right person to bring new life to an old idea. What other reason explains Kevin holding on so tightly, for so long, to over 460 embroidered blocks?

In Garnavillo, Kevin volunteered to help on some projects with the historical society and was invited to attend free community suppers hosted at the St. Peter Lutheran Church every month. He became acquainted with Jane Thein, a Garnavillo native who also grew up on a farm. Now retired, Jane is involved with the historical society and church, and somehow or another, Kevin’s quilt blocks were brought up in conversation. Kevin wanted to know if the ladies “quilting group” at the church would want them to make blankets or pillows.

“I wanted to help,” Jane said. “When I saw the beautiful work he’d done, there was no way I wanted to see them thrown away. I thought it would be a great project for some of us to work on and be a little different from the quilts we tie for Lutheran World Relief.”

She presented the idea to the group, stressing that Kevin’s sole purpose for donating the blocks was for charitable use. He didn’t want money for them. He hardly wants any credit; he’s just finally ready to let go. 

Letting go meant Jane taking six tubs of blocks, numbering well over 460, back to her house in October of last year. There, she washed, counted and inventoried the entire stock, while also creating a “memory” book for Kevin, to track who would be working on each and where it went once completed. 

“As to a goal in bringing it to the group, I wanted to help Kevin, and to help others and to encourage generosity. I’m a big believer in service and doing for others,” Jane said.

It took until early January before any work was done turning the blocks into a finished product, which itself is a time consuming endeavor. There are a litany of challenges, like the cost of fabric, skills required to finish a quilt and available volunteers—though Jane indicated she was reaching out to other quilting groups in the area to assist with that challenge. As for fabric, while the church gets a lot of donations, some will still need to be purchased.

Currently, a handful of quilting ladies are making strides in what will end up being a three- to five-year project. Among them are Trudy Nuehring of Colesburg, who has pieced two tops. Joyce Numedahl from Ossian has done four tops and is working on a fifth, and Georgi Kaiser, Debby Fischer and Denise Saunders from Garnavillo are each working on one.

Jane has hand quilted one crib quilt Kevin and Tonya had already assembled, and she has assembled three more quilts, hand tied one, machine quilted two and is currently working on some pillows. 

So far, volunteers have completed one adult quilt, two baby blankets and one baby quilt. When finished, the majority of the quilts will be donated to local churches and charities, like Shepherd of the Hills, the Family Resource Center, the EWALU quilt auction and local shelters.

“Kevin is concerned about people and people with needs. He is generous. He spent a lot of hours embroidering these blocks and tops and yet he’s not concerned with being paid back personally for his time,” Jane said.

Back at Kevin’s, as our interview wrapped up, we bonded over a shared interest in classic rock, something ingrained in me by my father, who Kevin often reminded me of, being from a similar era and background and with similar outlooks on the world.

I learned Rosie’s favorite cross-stitching her father did involved puppies. While Kevin is learning to move on a little, he’s still not reaching for the blocks with puppies on them. 

I also learned Rosie’s middle name was Marie, which is the same as my late grandmother’s and daughters. It was a peaceful detour in the conversation, and behind the gruffness and layer of anger, Kevin is a rather friendly person who has done the best he could going from one next thing to another.

It’s also obvious that Rosie was taken too young, as was Tonya, and Kevin’s life has been a hard one. But he’s continued to move on to the next thing, and the quilts he labored on for so many years will carry the story of a family project that ended too soon. They will live in memories, like Rosie and Tonya, while Kevin will grab another cross-stitch and sit in his recliner next to Bailey, with Law & Order playing in the background and pictures of Rosie and Tonya watching from the shelf behind.